212 YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE, 1926 
railway round fence posts, hewed ties, and all the uses that follow 
where sapwood is not objectionable. 
Sapwood decayed but heartwood sound, trees dead two to four 
years.—Use for sawed products, as box and yard lumber, mill prod- 
ucts, coffins and caskets, furniture, core stock (veneer), cabinet work, 
woodenware novelties, and slack cooperage. Where lumber is to be 
kiln dried, there is no fear that decay will spread, for this process | 
sterilizes the lumber effectually. ; 
Sapwood decayed and heartwood checked but fairly sound, trees 
four to six years dead. Tannin wood, pulp wood, farm fence posts. 
lumber or timbers for temporary construction. Wood less. sound 
can be used for fuel. This class of material should never be supplied 
for the purposes listed in the preceding paragraphs. Where this has 
been done it has in some regions brought about an embargo on all 
chestnut. : ne 
Chestnut constitutes about 25 per cent of the woods and forests on 
33,000,000 acres in the Appalachian region, and represents in mer- 
chantable timber fifteen to twenty billion board feet. To utilize this 
timber before it is destroyed is a national obligation. To delay doing 
so will in many instances result in a considerable loss to the owner. 
R. D. GARVER. 
HINESE Jujube The Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujuba) has 
C in Southwestern been grown in northern China since ancient 
United States times. It is one of the five principal fruits 
' of that country, and many excellent varieties 
have been developed by the Chinese. The tree is deciduous, rather 
small, and somewhat spiny, with firm, shining-green, oval or oblong 
leaves 1 to 3 inches long. (Fig. 44.) The fruit is a drupe, elliptic or 
oblong, up to about 2 inches long, with a thin dark-brown skin, and 
crisp, whitish flesh of sweet, agreeable flavor, inclosing a hard two- 
celled point stone, (Fig. 45.) | et een 
Although a. few seedling trees were grown in the United States-as 
early as about 1837, it was not. until Frank N. Meyer, agricultural 
explorer, visited China in 1908 that scions of large-fruited varieties 
were introduced. As a result of Meyer’s work there are now estab- 
lished in California and the Southwest a number of the best and 
largest-fruited forms’ of the jujube. ; 
The fruiting of these varieties in this country has stimulated inter- 
est among fruit growers and others, especially in Texas and Cali- 
fornia, and there is an ever-increasing demand not only for ‘propa- 
gating material, but also for information concerning culture’ and 
utilization of the fruits. © ~~ | 7 - pee 
The tree has withstood successfully temperatures as low as —22° 
F., and as high as 120°. It reaches its best development where the 
weather is dry, the sunshine brilliant, the nights warm, and the sum- 
mers long and hot. Large areas of the southwestern United States, 
therefore, are well adapted to jujube culture. Because of its habit 
of late flowering, the jujube is free from injury by spring frosts and 
bears regularly and abundantly. In respect to soil requirements, the 
jujube has shown that it thrives in sandy alkaline soil and also in 
